


A Cue From Anything You Do

by Frediculous



Category: HEYER Georgette - Works, The Talisman Ring
Genre: Angst, Corporal Punishment, Cousin Incest, Dom/sub Undertones, Ludovic is a brat, M/M, Oral Sex, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Riding Crops, S&M, Tristram is adorbs, implied past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:11:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frediculous/pseuds/Frediculous
Summary: Ludovic Lavenham is not one to submit patiently to being an invalid, nor does it seem possible to impress upon him the dangerous nature of his situation. Once possessed of his clothes, nothing short of turning the key upon him could keep him in his room. Until, that is, Sir Tristam Shield takes matters rather more firmly in hand.





	A Cue From Anything You Do

**Author's Note:**

> This interlude takes place partway in to chapter eight of 'The Talisman Ring' by Georgette Heyer.

With his fair hair curled about over his forehead, Ludovic Lavenham smiled like a sphinx and said that no, he had a fancy to wear Sylvester’s ruby on his finger.  
“Is that so?” replied Sir Tristam, not a shade of expression crossing his face.  
“Yes. It seems only fitting, as head of the family and such like.”  
“I see.”  
“It’s what Sylvester would have wanted,” he said, flexing his white fingers and setting the gem flashing light about the room.  
“Eustacie, would you leave us for a moment,” Sir Tristam said.  
“You are not to hurt him.”  
“I would not dream of it.”  
Her expression communicated that she was not convinced by such assurances. Sir Tristam tapped his riding whip against his boot, and repeated the wish that she leave give the gentleman a moment’s privacy.  
“I don’t see there’s anything you can say to me that can’t be said before all of us,” Ludovic said, still toying with the ring.  
“I can think of several things.”  
“It is too much. My cousin is badly hurt, and too weak.”  
Ludovic gave a short laugh, “Not so weak.”  
“Then you can bear a few moments conversation in private.”  
“If it’s the only way to get some peace. You’ll leave us a moment?”  
With a passionate look at them both, Eustacie said, “Only if you will not be too rough with him.”  
“With such an invalid?” But at that his cousin seemed to waiver in her departure, so that he was forced to nod reassuringly at her. When Sir Tristam turned back to the bed, Ludovic was still wearing his faint, quizzing smile, and turning the ring about on his hand. “I’ve a mind to take that from you,” he said.  
“Then I should be forced to shoot you.”  
“And add a true murder to the charge against you?”  
But Ludovic merely smiled the wider.  
“I will not scruple to lock you in this room.”  
“And I the head of the family?”  
“If you persist in this rash, destructive behaviour.”  
“You wouldn’t dare.”  
At that, it was Sir Tristam’s turn to smile, as he turned the key in the lock and secreted it snugly in the pocket of his waistcoat.  
“Now I’ve half a mind to take that from you.”  
Still smiling, Sir Tristam crossed to his cousin’s bedside and applied a firm, but gentle grip to his shoulder. Ignoring Ludovic’s gasp of pain, and indeed the way he reached for a pistol, he said, “I invite you to try it.”  
“That’s underhand, damee.”  
“And your behaviour has been rash and ill-advised throughout. By all means, take the key.”  
With his arms folded, Ludovic settled back against the bed head once more. “I’ll be revenged when I’m well.”  
“I thrashed you when we were lads and I believe I can do it still.”  
There was a moment of silence, after which the Ludovic coughed a little uncomfortably. “Licked. You meant to say licked.”  
Sir Tristram took his riding whip between his hands and flexed it. “Did I?”  
“You wouldn’t dare.”  
“That’s the second time you’ve said that.”  
For a moment, Ludovic appeared quite lost for words, but then he laughed and shifted himself on the bed, “That’s a fine jest, but -”  
“It could be just the thing to curb some of this reckless spirit of yours.”  
“It’s not as though I’ll simply permit you to - ”  
“Indeed, the more I think on the matter, the more I feel it is the only remedy for-”  
“Give me that whip,” but as Ludovic made a lunge for it, Sir Tristram prudently took a step backwards, and for a few seconds the pair stayed motionless, looking deep in to one another’s eyes.  
“Turn over,” said Sir Tristram curtly.  
“You’re running mad, cuz.”  
He took Ludovic’s firm chin in one hand and raised it. “Must I repeat myself?”  
A blush spread across Ludovic’s fine, white cheeks, and Sir Tristram wondered if he had perhaps pushed his cousin’s temper too far - but it was not the blush of rage, nor did Ludovic reach once more for his pistols. Indeed, with his eyes averted, Ludovic turned about and lay across the bed.  
Unobserved, it was Sir Tristram’s moment to blush, and for a moment his hands fumbled on the whip.  
“Last time, you made me pull my breeches down.”  
Sir Tristram coughed. “Even so.”  
“I don’t quite wish to.”  
“Must I do it for you?”  
“Go on then,” and the man’s voice was so impudent that Sir Tristam had flicked his wrist before he truly had time to consider what he did.  
“That smarts, d- you.”  
“It will smart all the more if you don’t do as you are told.”  
“Eustacie is right,” he laughed, “you are a tyrant.”  
“Do not bring Eustacie in to this.”  
“Oh, you don’t like that, do you?”  
Sir Tristram flicked the whip against Ludovic’s thighs once again.  
“I disrobe, I disrobe.” Without a great deal of further ado, and no more than two or three touches of the whip to encourage him, Ludovic’s long, muscular thighs were revealed. In the years since Sir Tristram had last seen them, they had clearly spent many hours astride a horse, and in other vigorous pursuits. His mouth suddenly dry, he was forced to swallow.  
Ludovic’s eyes flashed up at him, “Is there some problem? Am I to be pardoned?”  
“Merely deciding how best to strike. I believe I gave my word I would not be too rough with you.”  
“And there I was thinking we weren’t to -“ but a gasp cut short this latest impertinence. “I wasn’t quite ready for that!”  
“That is immaterial,” said Sir Tristram, collecting himself. “I was reprimanding you for your accustomed rashness, not awaiting your pleasure.”  
“Get on with it, then.”  
Within only a few seconds, Sir Tristram hoped he had given Ludovic cause to regret those words, as the thing, red welts spread pleasingly across the firm, muscled flesh of his legs and posterior. Breathing through his teeth, Ludovic let out the odd, muffled curse, but made no other complaint, not even when the blood began to run in picturesque trails between his thighs and in to the crack of his buttocks.  
Sir Tristram put his hand over his mouth to stop a groan from escaping.  
With a perfectly shameless sound, Ludovic lifted himself on to his uninjured shoulder and smiled up at him. “Seen something appealing?”  
A dark blond triangle of hair curled up to his hipbones, and the red marks of the whip almost curled around to it. Sir Tristram found it was not quite in his power to speak.  
“If I recall rightly, the last time it came to this, you wound up with my prick in your mouth.”  
“That must not happen again.”  
“Well, why not?”  
“It would not be right.”  
Ludovic put a finger, the finger with the ruby upon it, in to his own mouth and licked it. “Why on earth not?”  
“We are not boys playing at romance any longer.” Sir Tristram knew his words would have had rather more force if it had not for the pressing, visible disturbance in his own breeches. “And besides, we are cousins.”  
“I believe we have both been betrothed to a cousin this fortnight. Sylvester insisted upon it.”  
“That isn’t the same. And I have told you, don’t bring Eus-”  
“You’d rather it was just we two?”  
Sir Tristram looked away.  
“I’m not the one who started this, then or now.”  
“You were the one who ended it.”  
“You’re still sore over that?”  
Sir Tristram’s hand tightened upon his whip so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I’ll not lose you again. Not to the Runners, nor the Excise men, nor even to the Beau.”  
“The Beau,” said Ludovic with a laugh, but the crack of the whip against his skin put a stop to that.  
“Will you stop being such a d- fool?” Sir Tristram said with quiet force. “Will it take Newgate to convince you?”  
“You must let me live my life my own way.”  
“And end it your way, too?”  
“Even that.”  
“No.”  
Ludovic pulled himself to sitting, winced, then put his hand over Sir Tristram’s own. “I must take my own path.”  
“It will see you killed.”  
“I’ve survived this long.”  
“As a smuggler.”  
“Free trader, please.”  
Before he allowed himself to think too deeply about it, Sir Tristram pulled Ludovic’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “Swear you’ll be careful.”  
Ludovic followed his own hand to Tristram’s lips. “Oh, cuz, I didn’t know you cared.”  
In the moment’s breath of air that came between two kisses, he said, “That’s a way to see yourself thrashed again.”  
“If my other arm weren’t still in this d-d sling, I’d suggest something far better to do.”  
It was only with considerable self control that Sir Tristam was able to say, “I hardly think it prudent to give you that kind of satisfaction. In your current state you might keep to your bed for half an hour together.”  
“I’ll stay if you do.”  
He did not permit himself to be the one to look away from those shameless eyes, put his hand beneath Ludovic’s firm chin, pushing it upwards. “I could always have both.”  
It took a moment for the idea to penetrate Ludovic’s mind. “You wouldn’t be so cruel.”  
“Would you kneel to me, cousin?”  
For a moment, Ludovic’s mouth hung open as though for the first time in his life, he had managed to be dumbfounded. Then the slack expression became a smile and he licked his lips, the top one, and then the bottom. A flush of heat pressed itself against Sir Tristam’s skin. “Is that what you want?” Ludovic said.  
“I -” He tightened his hand on the whip once more. “Kneel.”  
“To oblige you, cousin.”  
Ludovic’s nose was level with his naval, the breath hot on the fabric of his waistcoat, eyes sparkling beneath the brows.  
“Is this what you meant?” And Ludovic’s strong, uninjured hand made its way up the inner seam of his leg, “Or have I misunderstood you?”  
“Put your mouth to better use,” he replied, not quite able to look.  
“But of course.”  
Hands trembling, Sir Tristram fixed his gaze upon the white wall above Ludovic’s bed, on the small cracks in the plaster, as the cold stone of the ruby grazed its way along the length of his…  
Then there were lips roughened by the merest hint of stubble at their edges, there was the tongue, hot and soft caressing him, the arm looped careless around his buttocks, pulling him closer, the breath wet and ready against him.  
His own fingers were twined deep in the curls of Ludovic’s hair, and his eyes were closed as he began to thrust his hips, to push apart those firm, wet lips, until the pleasure rose and choked him, and he could no longer see the white wall on the far side of the room.  
Ludovic settled back on his haunches, wincing, wiping his lips with long, white fingers. The ruby caught the light. With a cough, Sir Tristam adjusted himself and let his gaze move around the chamber, settling upon the rumpled bedsheets, the panelling, the dark, wooden furniture. He was not a man given to passion, a man who permitted himself to be so overwhelmed, but in that moment, he could not bear the thought that he had lived so many years without…  
Without…  
“Don’t take so long about it next time,” said Ludovic.  
Sir Tristam could still not meet his eyes. “I am not the one who -”  
The words were stifled with a kiss whose taste was salt and deep, with the grip of a hand upon his own. “There remains, however, the matter of,” and with meaning eyes, Ludovic looked downwards.  
His hand upon Ludovic’s neck, Sir Tristam smiled. “Then I suggest you take care of it, cousin. It would hardly do for Eustacie to see you in such a state.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bad person and I'm not sorry.


End file.
